“Because Henry Folger bought them during what we call the ‘Downton Abbey’ years in England,” she said in a matter-of-fact voice. “After World War I, many once-wealthy English families were selling off their copies because they needed the money.”

“So he picked them up on the cheap?”

“Let’s just say he did all right.” She brought me over to a counter where an open book rested in a cradle. “Here you are. One of Shakespeare’s First Folios. This is copy number fourteen.”

I held my breath as I looked at it. Bound in rust-colored leather with gilded trim, First Folio number fourteen looked as if it were in pristine condition. In the last four hundred years, how many people had owned it, turned its pages, read it, recited the words of a favorite passage?

“It’s beautiful,” I said.

“It is. As you can see, it was bound in Moroccan leather—which was a decision made by the individual who originally bought the unbound pages, which were basically stacks of sheets folded in half. Hence the name ‘folio.’ Each copy is different, some more elaborately bound than others. Gilded pages, different choice of leather, some people just bound the pages as they received them with no cover … the decision was up to the owner.”

Tana walked around the counter so she was facing me. “I’ll turn the pages for you so you can have a look at the book. Stop me if there’s something you particularly want to read.”

“Don’t you need to wear gloves?”

“At the Folger we believe it’s better for the books to be handled without gloves. You can’t really feel the paper with gloves on and we think there is less wear and tear if the pages are turned by hand. Plus there’s no harm to the paper from the natural oil from one’s fingers—as long as they’re clean, that is.”

The book was already open to the title page. Above a familiar engraving of Shakespeare—the one everyone knows—the publishers had printed:

Mr William Shakespeares

Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies

Published According to the True Originall Copies

Tana began turning pages. Just as in Quinn’s copy of Shakespeare’s plays, The Tempest was first. Comedies, then tragedies. I read the opening lines.

A tempestuous noise of thunder and lightning heard

Enter a master and a boatswain

And so the story began when Prospero used his magical powers to cause a ship that had left North Africa after a wedding and was bound for Italy to be wrecked on his island.

“Do you think The Tempest was based on the wreck of the Sea Venture?” I asked.

“There’s plenty of evidence that it could have been,” she said. “Shakespeare would have known members of the Virginia Company and he could have read the diary or the letters that were sent back to England by one of the men who was stranded on Bermuda.”